Spreadsheet Exploration

by

Sharon Sewell

EMAT 6680

Fall 2001

I have been using a spreadsheet program of one kind
or another for many, many years. They are a very versital tool when
working with a lot of data that needs sorting or a repetitive formula.
A perfect example of this is part 7 of this assignment. Place four
numbers in the first row as follows:A B C D. Each of these
needs to be in a separate column. For each successive row replace
the entries by the absolute value of the difference of the entery just
above and the entry just to the right in the previous row. In the
foruth position use the absolute value of the difference of the fourth
and the first row as follows: |A ?B| |B ? C| |C ? D| |D
? A|. This is not difficult to create on a spreadsheet program.
Fill in the first row with the desired first numbers. On the second
row create the formula needed to do the math for each cell. The critical
things to remember were to not forget the absolute value commands and to
make sure that A is subtracted from D and not column E. Once the
second row is set up, it can be copied down the page as far as desired.
The row numbers and column numbers will shift appropriately with the copy
function.

Here is an example of the above problem:

Column
A

Column
B

Column
C

Column
D

Column
A

Column
B

Column
C

Column
D

55

236

2

1713

10

12

14

16

181

234

1711

1658

2

2

2

6

53

1477

53

1477

0

0

4

4

1424

1424

1424

1424

0

4

0

4

0

0

0

0

4

4

4

4

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Column
A

Column
B

Column
C

Column
D

Column
A

Column
B

Column
C

Column
D

1

2

3

4

10000

1000

100

10

1

1

1

3

9000

900

90

9990

0

0

2

2

8100

810

9900

990

0

2

0

2

7290

9090

8910

7110

2

2

2

2

1800

180

1800

180

0

0

0

0

1620

1620

1620

1620

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Column
A

Column
B

Column
C

Column
D

Column
A

Column
B

Column
C

Column
D

1500672

3

2756

299

22

36

79

5

1500669

2753

2457

1500373

14

43

74

17

1497916

296

1497916

296

29

31

57

3

1497620

1497620

1497620

1497620

2

26

54

26

0

0

0

0

24

28

28

24

0

0

0

0

4

0

4

0

4

4

4

4

0

0

0

0

Column
A

Column
B

Column
C

Column
D

Column
A

Column
B

Column
C

Column
D

84

132

17

1

1

10

100

1000

48

115

16

83

9

90

900

999

67

99

67

35

81

810

99

990

32

32

32

32

729

711

891

909

0

0

0

0

18

180

18

180

0

0

0

0

162

162

162

162

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

I
created eight different sets of numbers to better show how this problem
worked.? If you have a desire
to manipulate the data more click here to access the worksheet. (Assignment12.xls)? Notice
that most sets of numbers get to zero in four or five rows.? But
there is one that takes six and one that takes seven.?Every
row does eventually have zeros in all four columns.? The
row before the end logically has the same number every column also.? What
is the largest number of rows that you found before hitting zero?? After
much playing around mine was 13.? And
that took some playing around with first one column then the others.? What
made it easy was the fact that, except for the changing the first row,
I did not have to do any of the mathematics.